Feed-regulator.



No. 663,902. Patented Dec. l8, I900.

J. HUTCHISON. FEED REGULATOR.

(A plication filed Feb. 17, 1898) (Ila Modal.)

WITNESSES; INVENTORI 6% Q w w OLhfiS-S.

THE Noam: mans c0. Pumauma. wmummou, 17v 0.

NITED STATES JOHN HUTOHISON, or JACKSON, MICHIGAN.

FEED-REGULATOR.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 663,902, dated December1900.

Application filed February 17, 1898. Serial No. 670,614. (No model.)

To all? whom it may concern.-

Be it known that l, JOHN HUTOHISON, a citizen of the United States,residing at Jackson, in the county of Jackson and State of Michigan,have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Feed-Regulators;and Ido hereby declare the following to be afull, clear, and exactdescription of the invention, such as will enable others skilled in theart to which it appertains to make and use the same.

My invention relates to improvements in feed-regulators adapted to beused in conjunction With grinding-mills and for various other purposes,and more particularly to that class in which the stock is delivered overa rotating roll commonly called a feed-roll and its object, primarily,is to overcome the unevenness of feed and difficulty of regulating thesame incidental to such structures as heretofore constructed; to providea machine that Will satisfactorily feed stock containing lumps or massesof matter thicker than the stream of stock passing over the feed-roll,and to adapt the device to feeding a great variety of stock heretoforefound difficult or impossibleio feed by such machinery. These previousdevices consist of two distinct classes having two distinct modes ofoperation. In one of these classes, which may properly be called thebucket-feed, thefeed-roll is supplied with buckets or cavities adaptedto contain a definite amount of stock. These will feed lumpy stock, butthe feed is pulsating and uneven, due to the discharge of the contentsof each bucket in succession, and the amount of feed is determinedwholly by the speed of the feed-roll, thus requiring special means forchanging the same. The other class have substantially smooth rolls anddepend upon regulating the amount of feed by regulating the gate-openingto correspond to the thickness of the stream of stock passing over thefeed-roll. In this class the feed-roll forms one side of thegate-opening. In all this latter class any lump or solid mass thickerthan this thin stream of stock cannot pass the gate, and thegate-opening necessarily being very narrow it will easily clog.Therefore many kinds of stock cannot be fed at all by this class ofdevices. Yielding gates have been tried to permit lumps to pass, butsuch are unreliable, as they vary in opening with the varying pressureof the stock and when momentarily opened wider by the pas sage of a lumpsuddenly discharging excess of stock. I overcome all these difficultiesby a device having a totally different mode of operation from either ofthe foregoing classes of devices. v

My device consists, essen tially,ofa feed-roll havinga substantiallysmooth surface and rotating at an unchangeable speed, a plane surfaceextending some distance from this feedroll to and beneath the hopper,over which plane surfacethe stock is pushed or crowded by a suitableangular or bucketed roll in the hopper, and a gate adjustable to andfrom said plane surface and located between the feed-roll and saidangular roll and at a considerable distance from each, the distance ofsaid gate from the plane surface, the feedroll, and the angular rollbeing much greater than the thickness of the stream of stock flowingover the feed-roll, whereby no obstruction is presented to the passageof lumps of stock, no change of gale-opening induced by their passage,no change of speed required to change the feed, and the feed regulatedsolely by change of gate-opening, which latter is at all times muchgreater than the thickness of the stream of stock passing over thefeed-roll and various kinds of material suc' cessfully fed, as will morefully appear by reference to the accompanying drawings, in which IFigure 1 is a vertical section of a device embodying my invention, takenon the line 1 1 of Fig. 2; Fig. 2, a frontelevation of the same.

Like letters refer to like parts in both figures.

A represents any convenient spout to carry the stock to the hopper B,said hopper having forwardly-extended sides B and an adjustable gate D,movable in grooves in the sides B and clamped by a bolt H, passingthrough the same and provided with the thumb-nut H. Said gate isindependently adjusted at each end Within certain limits by means ofracks E on the gate engaged by pinions F, mounted on shafts F, journaledin bearing in the ends B and operated by hand-wheels G.

O is the bottom of the hopper and forms the plane surface heretoforereferred to, said bottom extending beneath the hopper and also beneaththe gate D, and thence'outward a suitable distance beyond the same,where it abuts against the side of the feed-roll T, said roll having itsaxis substantially in the plane of the bottom 0. For feeding some kindsof stock said bottom is preferably inclined more or less; but thisinclination is not very material.

K is an angular or chambered roll, the form of which is not verymaterial, so that it is provided with projecting parts or angles thatadapt it to carry or crowd the stock forward over the surface of thebottom 0 toward the feed-roll I, for which purpose it must be rotated inthe direction indicated by the adja-- cent arrow, the lower side turningtoward said feed-roll, which latter is rotated in the direction of theother arrow and carries the stock over by frictional contact therewith.To rotate said rolls, they are preferably connect-ed by gears J J ontheir respective shafts, and one of said shafts is provided with adriving-pulley M to be engaged by a suitable belt.

The operation of my device, it will be-observed, is wholly differentfrom one having a bucketed feed-roll or from one having a smooth rolland a gate adjacent thereto, with the gate-opening no greater than thestream of stock flowing over the roll. The angular roll K not onlyoperates as an agitator to break up the stock and permit it to flow, butby virtue of its direction of rotation and projecting angle it sweeps orcrowds the stock forward over the surface of the bottom 0 and againstthe adjacent side of the feed-roll I, where it banks up to a greater orless depth, depending on the gate-opening, which opening is quite wideto accommodate the slowlymoving mass between the rolls K and I insteadof narrow, as necessary if it were adj usted to the thickness of themore rapidlymoving stream of stock passing over the roll, which latterroll, moving at all times at a uniform speed, but much faster than theflow between the rolls, thins out and accelerates the flow and carriesover more or less, according as the stock comes to it in greater or lessdepth, which depth is wholly regulated by' the gate adjustment.

With freely-flowing material the angular roll K may be dispensed withand the inclination of the bottom 0 relied upon to induce the flow ofstock against the feed-r011 I. In

some cases a comparatively larger angular roll K or one of differentform may be advantageously used; but in every instance the operationpeculiar tomy device oc'cu-rsto wit, a slow flowing mass of stockoverthe plane surface of the bottom 0, regulated in depth by acomparatively wide gate-opening above and adjacent thereto and at adistance from the feed-roll, and the carrying over of the stock byfrictional contact with the feedroll in greater orless amount,dependentupon the depth of this slow flowing stream and whollyunobstructed by any adjacent gate or other obstruction forminga narrowpassage to stop any lumps that may pass through the wide gate or to clogthe How of stock over the roll.

Having thus fully described my invention, what I claim, and desire tosecure by Letters Patent, is

l. The combination of a hopper having a bottom forming a plane surfaceextending outside the hopper, a gate adjustable toward and from thebottom and at a distance from the outer edge thereof, a substantiallysmooth feed-roll adjacent to the outer edge of the bottom, and anangular roll in the hopper, rotating toward the feed-roll at its lowerside, to cause the stock to flow forward over said bottom, substantiallyas described.

2. The combination of a hopper having a vertically-adjustable sideforming a gate, a bottom to said hopper forming an inclined planesurface extending beneath and beyond said adjustable side, asubstantially smooth feed-roll adjacent to the outer edge of saidbottom, and rotating upward at the side toward the same, an angular rollin the hopper,

'and rotating toward the feed-roll at the under side substantially asdescribed.

3. In a feed-regulator a smooth feed-roll, and an angular roll at adistance from each other the feed-roll rotative upward at the sidetoward the angular roll and the angular roll rotating toward thefeed-roll at its lower side, a plane surface abutting against the sideof this feed-roll in the plane of its axis and eX-- tending beneath, theangular roll, and a gate midway between said rolls and adjustable towardand from the said plane surface, substantially as described.

Intestimony whereof I affix my signature in presence of two witnesses.

JOHN HUTCHISON.

Witnesses:

HENRY E. EDWARDS, LUTHER V. MOULTON.

